Atlas of Greenland
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Wikimedia Commons Atlas of the World The Wikimedia Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons. Discussion • Update the atlas • Index of the Atlas • Atlas in categories • Other atlases on line |
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The introductions of the country, dependency and region entries are in the native languages and in English. The other introductions are in English.
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general maps
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Greenland in the Arctic region |
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Blank SVG map of Greenland, including the ice cap contour |
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Map of the ice sheet's thickness |
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Map of Greenland |
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Map of Greenland |
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Greenland in the Kingdom of Denmark |
Avannaata municipality
Qeqertalik municipality
Qeqqata municipality
Sermersooq municipality
Kujalleq municipality
History maps
This section holds a short summary of the history of the area of present-day Greenland, illustrated with maps, including historical maps of former countries and empires that included present-day Greenland.
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The island of Greenland was inhabited by the Inuit since the eighth century. In 981 Vikings explored and colonized the west coast of what is now Greenland. They formed a more or less separate state that disappeared in 1410. This map shows Scandinavian settlement in the eighth (dark red), ninth (red), tenth (orange), and eleventh (yellow) centuries. Southwestern Greenland is colored in orange. |
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Erik the Red (950–1000), in Old Norse, Eiríkur rauði, founded the first Nordic settlement in Greenland. This map shows Erik's Greenland |
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Maps showing the different cultures in Greenland, Labrador, Newfoundland, and the Canadian arctic islands in the years 900, 1100, 1300, and 1500. The green color shows the Dorset culture, blue the Thule culture, red the Norse culture, yellow the Innu culture, and orange the Beothuk culture. The Norse settlements along the southwest coast eventually disappeared after about 450 years. The Inuit survived and developed a society to fit the increasingly forbidding climate. |
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This map shows Greenland as part of the Kalmar Union which was a personal union in Scandinavia, agreed at Kalmar in Sweden as designed by Queen Margaret of Denmark. The union existed from 1397 to 1523. Among Greenland, the map also shows union member Norway's other maritime colonies, including Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. |
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This map shows Greenland as part of Denmark-Norway in 1780. After several centuries of no contact between the Norse Greenlanders and the Scandinavian motherland, it was feared that the inhabitants had lapsed back into paganism, so in 1721 a missionary expedition was sent out to reinstate Christianity. However, since none of the lost Norse Greenlanders were found, Denmark-Norway, instead, proceeded to baptize the local Inuit Greenlanders and develop trading colonies along the coast as part of its aspirations to be a colonial power. Colonial privileges were retained, such as a monopoly on trade. The colony of Greenland was established in 1775. |
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From 1917 on, the whole of Greenland was under Danish control. Norway annexed the eastern part of Greenland (shown on the map) in 1932 and named it Erik the Red's Land. In 1933 the International Court of Justice ruled in favor of Denmark, and Norway withdrew. |
| During World War II, from 1941 to 1945, the United States protected the colony. In 1953 Greenland became a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland was granted autonomy in 1979. |
Old maps
This section holds copies of original general maps more than 70 years old.
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17th century map of Greenland |
Satellite maps
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Satellite image |
Notes and references
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General remarks:
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